Tendrils
by AddisonRules
Summary: Sometimes we're more bound to friends and enemies than we knew. A dramatic confrontation with HYDRA changes lives forever and reveals a secret buried so deep only Nick Fury can unlock it. Spoilers for all Disney/Marvel movies and AoS through ep 21.
1. Chapter 1

I own nothing. Just borrowing for fun and amusement.

* * *

He's not her type. At all.

He's got this air about him that screams entitled and he's a little too smooth, too charming, but it's the thing in his eyes that freezes her, makes it so she can't look away. He's smiling, but it doesn't put even a small glimmer into the blue irises that flash her way once and then, seeing her, come back again.

She smiles almost against her will, because he's not her type. But she's alone in Macau for another three days while Rae finishes celebrating graduation with the hot Aussie rugby player in Kyoto, and she can't stop thinking about what it is that makes his smile incomplete.

So when he walks over and sits down without an invitation, she bites back the comment that wants to come out of her mouth and instead just stares straight ahead into the mirrors behind the bar. And he doesn't come at her with a line or lean in too close, which tells her he's older than her, though she can't really tell how much. Already done with college maybe? At 18, she's enjoying a world tour, and she's used to boys who paw at her or say really stupid things, but this man radiates maturity and composure, and she likes that about him.

"First time in Macau?"

So British, maybe? That's the accent she guesses. She should get used to that. Oxford is waiting for her in the fall.

"First time. You?"

She lets her gaze slide toward him as she speaks, and he turns to look at her, his eyes tracing the bubbles in her champagne.

"First time. Here for business."

"The business of?"

He chuckles then and shakes his head. For a second she thinks he's about to decide she's too young, too not _his_ type, but instead he rests an elbow against the bar and lets himself lean into it comfortably, the tips of his fingers against his temple.

"I'm a magician."

The look on her face must express her curiosity... and her doubt... because he sets down his glass of... vodka, she thinks, and slides his palm against the bar top. Everywhere his skin touches, a swirl of color follows, disappearing into a cloud of wonder right in front of her eyes.

"How did you do that?" She asks reflexively, but then she catches herself. "Sorry. Never reveal your tricks, right? Still, that was impressive."

"My mother taught me."

The admission brings some light to his eyes, and she knows that whatever else dims that intensity, the thought of his mother sparks it anew. It touches her, and she wonders if he's always this exposed, if the broken pieces inside of him are always so visible, or is this just a night where he's too worn down to try to hide it.

"So you know mine. And you're here because?"

She laughs and sips at her champagne. "Guilt, really. My parents and my best friend's parents, they sent us on a world tour for our graduation gift. I call it a 'thanks for not turning into delinquents and burning down the house' reward. They all travel a lot, so it's just the two of us most of the time."

She lets that line of conversation drift off. Her parents' work is not the kind of thing you can talk about, and she's drinking, so she has to be careful not to mention anything she shouldn't.

"Have you taken a moonlit walk through Senado Square yet?" he asks, his drink forgotten as he finally moves a little closer. But she doesn't mind. He may not be her type, but he's intriguing, and she's alone in a strange city, and intriguing feels nice.

She also knows four forms of martial arts. So if he turns out to be a nut, she feels confident in her ability to defend herself.

They leave the bar and walk the square, and she doesn't need to show him any of her favorite self-defense moves because he's... lovely. She's not sure how else she'd describe him. He seems lighter outside under the stunning moon and in her company, and though she has a half-hour in a bar as a mark of comparison, the newfound ease in his shoulders makes her heart flutter. Not as much as when he takes her hand, but almost.

He has a suite in the one hotel in the city nicer than hers and she goes back with him because something in her just tells her it's right. She's safe with him and his laughter makes her head spin and this is what life can be when a girl is 18 and traveling the world and finding out who she is.

Everyone thinks they know the answer to that already... to who she is. Oxford was her one rebellion, but it felt a little like her parents were just happy she didn't pick Stanford because if it wasn't going to be an Ivy League, it damn well better have been Oxford. Her mother fully expects her daughter to follow in her footsteps, working in secret, doing things to keep the world safe that mean your life is mostly a lot of rushing off and saying good-bye and leaving people hoping you make it home.

She's not sure she can live that life, but she isn't sure she can walk away, either.

So she decides to let the warmth of the air and the feel of his fingers tracing the skin of her forearm and the rightness of how they fit together as they dance barefoot in his hotel room be her choice. She chooses this for now, for this moment, and it will be hers, a thing no one can ever take away.

He's gentle and tender and later, when she's lying in his arms, her eyes fighting to stay open against the lull of his heartbeat, he tells her that she's the first woman who's ever made him feel like she wanted him and not the idea of who he's supposed to be. She feels tears sting at her eyes, but she holds them back, instead turning her head just enough to kiss his chest where the strong "thump, thump" lies beneath. The small act of love makes her feel more womanly than the one of making love to him.

They have three days. Three days that are the richest, most romantic time she can ever imagine having in her life, though at 18, she knows that's a bold statement. Who knows what is heading her way, who is for that matter? But this... this little window will be a series of treasured snapshots in her memory, and she's grateful for it even as it happens.

When they say good-bye, it's sad, not because they think it can be any other way... he has to get home and Rae has finally caught up with her, and they have a flight to St. Petersburg tomorrow. She makes him promise to try to let the light in his eyes shine brighter, and he makes her promise to live the life she wants, not one handed to her. She can still feel his lips against hers as he climbs into the taxi, his eyes fixed to hers until finally the car pulls away.

She tells Rae most of the story when her friend gets settled in their suite, and the other young woman is pained she missed meeting the English Romeo, but not so much so that it keeps her from launching into a story about her rugby player.

The more precious parts of those days, Melinda keeps those to herself. And she can imagine a time in the future when she's struggling, trying to decide what path to take and she'll remember his voice in her ear and it will help her find the strength to listen to her own desires above all else.

"You're exquisite, Melinda. You will be amazing. Just be who you are and never be afraid of the power it gives you."

She smiles thinking of it, of the response she spoke back to him.

"And you are beautiful, Luke. I know you don't believe me, but you are. In the places that matter, you're perfect."

She hopes he believed her.

* * *

Fury wants to be anywhere but where he is. He wants to be fighting a war or arguing with Pierce. Hell, what he really wants is to be drunk, because this...

This is the part of his job he hates.

He loves her. Melinda May is one of the ones who got inside him, crawled in like the scared little girl she still was in some ways and made him care.

He'd almost missed her, but the necessary deferral of her Oxford admission had given his scouting reports time to catch up with him. She was off the charts when it came to test rankings and fighting skills, and between her and the other recruit he'd brought in, Phil Coulson, Fury knew he had found the building blocks for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s future.

But no one had planned on what the doctors saw when they ran "a few tests" on Melinda and her unborn child.

They weren't sure who the baby's father was. They did know he was not human, that the energy readings created by the fetal bioprocesses were similar... too similar... to that damn cube Howard Stark had pulled out of the ocean.

It was too great a responsibility to leave a child like that in the hands of someone barely out of childhood herself, even if she was destined to be one of the legends of S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury could feel that in his bones when it came to Melinda.

So instead of anywhere else, he was here, watching doctors wrap the tiny newborn girl in a blanket and rush her away to the hiding place they'd chosen, a small village in China where hopefully no one would notice one extra baby girl.

"Sir, we're ready to run the memory protocols."

Fury sighed and shook his head. This was for the best. May would become the force he knew she was meant to be without anything to hold her back, and the child would be safe until they could figure out who her father was and what her powers might be.

"Tell me again what the story will be?"

"Car accident. That will allow for her to submit to her recovery without questioning what happened to her. It resulted in an emergency c-section, and the child didn't survive."

Fury nodded, and then added one last note.

"Remember to replace the weeks in Macau and Russia with the approved narratives."

He felt a tug of regret as he recalled the way Melinda had talked about her plans for her child, that her parents would raise the girl until Melinda was able to do it herself after her training. There was already love there, and now...

"Begin," he said, and the doctor went to work.

He hated this part of his job. But he told himself they were just memories. If it meant Melinda and her daughter would lead safer lives, it seemed a small price to pay.


	2. Chapter 2

Still own nothing. Just borrowing for fun and amusement.

* * *

It's the last thing he expects. He's watching the battle between a ragtag group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and the triple-numbered HYDRA forces, and it's almost laughable to Loki how predictable it all is. The small band of good convinced they can muster enough strength and courage to tamp down evil, wrest control from their grasp. It all reminds him of his over-earnest sometimes brother, and Loki's amusement is replaced by a surge of disgust.

But then he hears the voice of a man he knows to be dead and intrigue floods the trickster god. To what end is someone using trickery... to once again motivate the valiant on Earth in battle? He half expects another beat to pass and then to see the ceiling caving in as The Avengers descend to right wrong. Of course, he knows better than any that Thor's band of fighting merry men is scattered to the four winds in light of Fury's death. And he wouldn't have it any other way.

But then the curtain pulls back and Loki sees there is no trick in play except the one perpetrated on him. Phil Coulson races down a stairwell, gun blazing, HYDRA agents falling in his wake, and despite the impossibility of it, Loki watches as the man he killed wrests the scared Scottish man out of the cage he was held in.

The HYDRA numbers are great, though, and a legion of human forms race into the room. Coulson and his man are surrounded, guns poised, their lives seconds from ending. And then screams tear down the hallway above and every man's eye raises, peeled, waiting.

It's a blur at first; a form moving so quickly and with such precision that even Loki's heightened senses have trouble registering what's happening. One person... he realizes that the carnage that follows is meted out by one lone figure performing a destructive ballet. Wails sound, bodies crash, bones shatter, limbs flail as man after man goes down in the wake of power moving through the room. And then...

He knows the magic he's capable of, and for one split second, Loki wonders if his mind is now the one playing tricks, pulling a long-missed and lovingly remembered face forward, blinding him to the woman really standing there, but there's no logic to it. Why would he imagine her this way, why would he want to see her fighting her way through almost certain death? So there's nothing to it but for it to be real... for the woman standing there with blood on her hands and streaked on her face to be her.

"Get to the bus, now!"

Her voice is filled with command, and as Coulson gathers up the younger man and heads for the door, a black man races up from behind her, a younger woman with long dark hair leaning on him for help. The four of them disappear as Loki watches, mystified by their seeming belief that the woman starring in this scene can hold the rest of the HYDRA army at bay.

And then she does just that.

He's prepared to step in, to use the powers that he's amassed by birthright and by training to aid her, but instead he remains trapped in awe as man after man meets his defeat at her hands.

How is it possible that those hands are so deadly? He remembers them, their delicacy, the way they felt against his skin. And yet they, along with the rest of the body he recollects as stunning, are her only weapon.

And then it's done. She stands alone in the room, victorious, and Loki would applaud were her efforts not significantly hindering his own to recover the Chitauri Scepter from HYDRA's grasp. Still, she seems unaware of its presence, or unconcerned, the true goal of this entire assault apparently the rescue of the people she has saved. With that goal satisfied, she begins to move to the door, her guard remaining up, her face a mask he cannot read.

When the girl steps out, he watches Melinda calculate her as a non-threat, watches her confusion as she tries to understand why the girl is there. The other woman is a wisp of a thing with a British accent, and her teary voice reels Melinda in, drawing them closer together.

He sees it too late to warn her.

A man races to the balcony, and Melinda turns to go on offense and the crying girl ducks as a tall man with dark hair steps in. The scepter is in his hand, and as the full betrayal she's just suffered registers and Melinda turns to fight, the blade is brought down.

Had she not moved to defend herself, it would've sliced her in half. As it is, her arm is struck, a mortal wound torn into the flesh Loki has just seen withstand the best a hundred men had to give.

He acts without thought. His magic grips the man on the balcony and rips him down into the floor, breaking bones and tearing flesh. And at his command, the scepter hurls itself from the taller man's grasp. The crying girl screams and races to the other man, helping him up and away as Loki puts his sole focus on the one who has just torn Melinda's body apart. With it back in his control for the first time since New York, Loki harnesses the scepter's power, channeling it, his rage fueling the blast of energy that hits the man in the chest and drives him through the wall and out into the dark.

There's a beat where he wants to follow, where all he can think of is driving the blades of the scepter into the man until he can pull out his insides, but then he hears her gasping for breath, fighting the pain that's draining her life out of her body, and it's all he needs to leave vengeance behind.

She's older, but barely looks it, and all he can think as he leans down beside Melinda is that she's still exquisite... still every bit the wonderment she was on that long ago day in Macau when he changed his name and found out what it was to love and be loved, even if it only lasted a moment.

Her right arm is cut deeply, barely hanging on to her body thanks to the leather sleeves that gave her some slight bit of protection. Blood pools around her and he can see that she's fighting... and losing.

She needs time. The arm can be fixed with time. Her life can be saved with time. And so he gives it to her, his hands conjuring cold and ice along the wound, stopping the red from her veins from flowing free.

"Live, Melinda. Please."

He hears the others coming, so he pulls a healing rune from his bag, opens the vest and shirt that cover her, and presses it to the skin above her heart. It, too, will help her, a gift from Frigga's teachings. He has never been more grateful he paid such close attention.

Scepter in hand, Loki stands, his eyes watching as the rune melds to her body, sinking in, fortifying her for the fight ahead. But he's seen the warrior she is. He knows she will win.

"Loki?"

He glances up to realize he's stayed too long and his eyes lock with Coulson's. There's a beat where the human looks down, sees Melinda's injured form, and Loki knows this is far from over, that he and Coulson have a date in the future where answers will be needed. But they both have another priority today.

He cloaks himself, disappearing before their eyes, and from his unseen position he watches the tenderness Coulson uses to bundle Melinda into his arms and race her to safety.

What he notes in the other man's movements is love, and Loki can only marvel at the idea that he and the human he once killed, in this moment, share a heart that beats in a united purpose, overflowing with emotions tied to the same woman.

* * *

It's Maria who finally breaks through to him.

Coulson has heard no one but the doctors since they arrived at Stark's compound, his team a bruised mess, May barely alive. The betrayals of Ward and Simmons have overwhelmed what they all felt about Garrett, and Skye has done all she can to keep Fitz in one piece and Triplett from hunting the traitors down. She's done it by reminding them that Coulson needs them now; needs them more than ever.

Stark's doctors save May and repair her arm, unsure how to explain the rapid healing that's undertaken in her body once circulation is restored. Because they work for Tony Stark and have all the best toys, they reinforce the damaged area with titanium rods that will make "The Cavalry's" future opponents buckle that much sooner, but even they are unable to explain just how the ice on May's wound held until the exact moment she was safely in their care.

One called it magic, and Hill had to stop Coulson from decking the poor physician.

They all try to talk to him in the rare moments the doctors force Phil out of May's room, but their words fall on deaf ears. His whole life is showering, eating what he can manage in five minutes, and getting back to that room, and he can't hear anything they say to him.

So Maria did the only thing left to do. She went to him.

_"Tony only knows I'm helping some former agents here. He hasn't asked for names."_

_No answer._

_"She's going to be fine, Phil. You know that."_

_"I do?"_

_They're the first words he's spoken in days._

_"You're alive. You think she's going anywhere while you still need her?"_

_The truth of it loosens something inside the knot that's kept Phil Coulson paralyzed for days. _

_"I keep trying to remember why I listened when she told me to go," he says, eyes firmly cast on the woman he's talking about instead of to. "I don't know why I stopped fighting for her."_

_Maria's hand settles on his shoulder because she does remember._

_"Watching you wait for her to heal was killing her, Phil. You let go because you knew if you didn't, you'd never get her back."_

_She crouches down, and waits until Coulson finally pulls his eyes away from the still form of his ex-wife and turns to her._

_"And you did the right thing, because the woman who came to find me to help you, who was willing to do anything it took to give you peace, the one who became 'The Cavalry' again to save your team... she was all those things because you gave her time to find herself again."_

_The smallest of smiles curls his lips before darkness grabs hold of him again._

_"And he tried to take her away."_

_Which is the topic that brought Maria Hill down here._

_"It doesn't make any sense, Phil. You know that."_

_"I saw him."_

_"I know you did. I'm not doubting. I'm asking why?"_

_"Why he tried to kill her? He's a monster."_

_Maria shakes her head. "No. Why, whether he's involved with HYDRA or he was just there to steal his damn scepter back, would Loki, who has killed hundreds of people, nearly kill Melinda only to then stop and save her?"_

_"So you think he just saw her lying there and out of the kindness of his twisted heart, he stopped and saved the life of a stranger?"_

_Maria sighs deeply and reaches up, her fingers just barely touching down against the edge of Melinda's leg._

_"I think we both know that everything we can't explain about how she didn't bleed to death on that floor is due to Loki. I know that we both hate the bastard and would like to see him dead. And I am certain, Phil, that until we find out what his connection is to this, till we understand why he stopped and saved her life, Melinda may be in danger."_

_That breaks through, and Coulson nods, resigned, ready to do what needs to be done. At least, he will be once Melinda is well again. Maria stands, staying at his side._

_"This place is safe. You and the team can stay as long as you need it. I'll see what I can find out in the meantime."_

_"I wiped all our records," Phil offers, the weight on his shoulders so heavy that Maria fears it will topple him over. "When we went rogue, I had Skye wipe everything. If there was anything in the database..."_

_Maria touches his shoulder again, silencing him._

_"I'll see what Skye can recover. I'll see what Stark hacked and kept without us knowing. There's an answer somewhere, Phil. We'll find it."_

_He nods and returns his whole focus to the woman in the bed as Maria makes her exit to track down Skye and put her to work.  
_

When she walks past one more time on her way out, Maria sees Phil sleeping, finally, his head resting on Melinda's bed, the fingers of Melinda's good hand moving gently against his hair.

Maria knows the part she played in the hell that has been Phil Coulson's life since the day he died. She knows, too, that it was worth it, that having Phil in the world now has helped them all survive what's befallen S.H.I.E.L.D. But she owes him; she owes Melinda.

She's just settled on the chopper when a ding on her tablet grabs her attention. Maria downloads the files from the med tech and glances at them, more to decide how best to secure them on the Stark network than looking for anything, but it grabs her eye anyway, forcing her to read every word, take in every scientific notation.

"We'll need to make a detour," she tells the pilot. "Drop me at the private airfield. I can make my way from there."

"You need a security team?" he asks, following Tony's orders, but Maria doesn't hesitate to turn it down. She's the only one who can know where she's headed.

She owes Phil and Melinda. But as her eyes glance back at the tablet, she can't shake the gnawing feeling in her gut that Fury owes them more.


	3. Chapter 3

Still own nothing. But I wouldn't mind owning some badass hate fu skills.

* * *

Skye kind of can't believe that after everything, it's the sight of Tripp sitting watch near the door that's the key to Fitz finally drifting off to a sound sleep. It's the security the Scot needs... that they all need, and it's hard to come by these days. But Tripp, who's been turned inside out by Garrett as much as the rest of them have by Ward and Simmons... Tripp turns out to be the one that makes them feel safe while their one-woman army is down.

They're all on the verge of collapse, their assorted bangs and bumps from the showdown with HYDRA leaving them sore and lacking movement, the exhaustion of worrying over May and Coulson and what the hell happens next weighing them down as surely as cement bricks attached to their feet.

The heartbreak is something they aren't talking about yet. No one mentions Simmons at all, and if they mention Ward, it's in the context of ripping his heart out for May the next time they see him. If he's still alive. No one is sure about that. Skye had seen the man who'd broken her heart fly through the compound wall, his body slamming into the ground outside, and it was only later that Coulson had explained the why of it... Loki, likely tried to kill Ward in an effort to regain his scepter. They didn't have time to find out what had happened to the traitor, not with May half dead on the floor. There had been no signs of Garrett or Simmons anywhere, and so the assumption was they'd escaped for now. But there would be no let up, no thoughts of ending their quest until both of them had been captured and brought to justice. They didn't need to speak the promise aloud to know they were all in agreement on that.

It had taken them time to sort out the rest, to realize that Jemma, who they'd left behind because of her injuries from that drop into the ocean, had actually run an enormous con on them all. She'd followed them, waited for an opportunity to help her true allies, and then turned on the team as surely as Ward had, without warning and with devastating results. They still didn't know why, but the truth was, it didn't matter anymore. Not after May.

That she used Melinda May's heart against her makes Skye hate Jemma a little more than Ward. Because the last few days have taught the hacker volumes about the ways she misjudged the older woman, the erroneous snap judgments made, observations missed. May isn't the ice queen she imagined her to be; she's a cauldron of desperate, raw emotion kept expertly in check, and in the center of that swirl of feeling is them... their team, the little family that Phil Coulson brought together... and despite every bit of resistance she might have mounted, May loves them all. She was willing to die for them in that building, not because she had orders from S.H.I.E.L.D. but because they mean that much to her. And Skye doesn't need to work hard to imagine that seeing Jemma, May had assumed her friend was in trouble, perhaps snatched up from her hiding place by HYDRA, and desperate for help, and that one moment of caring distraction had almost been fatal.

Almost.

They were all sketchy on the details of what happened next, but Hill had told them that the "man" Coulson saw leaning over May was the same Asgardian who had struck Coulson down before the Battle of New York. Something he'd done had kept May alive long enough for them to get her here and save her. But even now that it looked like the worst of the danger had passed, they remained shell-shocked, worn down by too much loss and betrayal for two lifetimes let alone the span of a just under one week.

Stark's building with the hidden bunker had ample space for all of them, and each had been assigned a room once the immediate medical crisis had passed and the orderlies had basically threatened to remove them all from the outside of the O.R. while the doctors worked to repair May's arm. But no one could sleep. Tripp had walked the compound on sentry duty, unable to believe there was no immediate threat; Fitz was tormented by thoughts of why and how Jemma had sided with Garrett. And Skye had been half worried sick about Coulson and half afraid if she took her eyes off one of them, they might disappear.

Finally they'd collapsed into chairs in the dining area, and grouped together, the trio had managed a few hours of sleep. It had become their routine, each taking turns staying awake in case Coulson needed them or there was an update from the medical unit on May. It was only now with the news that she had finally woken up and was stable that the idea of real sleep seemed possible. And Fitz mercifully at rest seemed like a good sign.

Still, Skye needed one last bit of reassurance before she could try to close her eyes again.

She stayed hidden when she realized she could hear May's voice, low and broken though it was, lobbying Coulson to lay his head back down and rest. But she couldn't resist easing around the corner enough to get visual confirmation of those words that had taken so long to come. _"She'll be just fine."_

A.C. was leaning against the bed, one hand brushing the hair back from May's face. And Skye thought about that story of the younger Melinda May who had walked into a building in Bahrain and lost a part of herself.

This Melinda May was exhausted and in pain. And she had once again walked into a building that could qualify as hell on Earth. But when Coulson finally gave in and laid his head down on the bed, Skye didn't miss the small curl to the older woman's lips and the gentle way she reached out with her good hand to help lull her old friend to sleep with the comforting brush of her fingers.

This Melinda May hadn't lost anything in the horror of that place, and Skye felt tears stinging as gratitude rushed through her.

But she wasn't just grateful for May's emotional and physical survival. Skye knew it was bigger than that. She had found something, not just that day, but in all the ones that had passed since she had decided to walk onto the Bus voluntarily for the first time. Skye knew who she wanted to be, and the two people in that room who were so relieved to still have each other... they had given her that gift one second chance at a time.

Ward and Garrett and HYDRA had poisoned the world and brought S.H.I.E.L.D. to its knees, but they hadn't won. Not as long as she and Fitz and Tripp had these two people to guide them. They didn't need badges to do what was right. They never had. They'd just needed something to believe in.

And they had each other. That was enough.

* * *

Fury couldn't help the reflex that made him pick up a gun and aim it even though the proper signals and codes had been exchanged. When a man ceases to exist and becomes a ghost, his level of paranoia can never be too high. But Hill slipped into the room and secured the door behind her, and Fury lowered the weapon, confident that for this hour, he didn't need it.

Then he saw the look on Maria's face and wondered if maybe he was wrong.

"What?"

"HYDRA had Loki's scepter. Coulson and his people tried to keep it out of Garrett's hands. They got hit pretty hard."

Fury steeled himself because the look on his number two's face told him this story got worse.

"Casualties?"

"Simmons turned out to be HYDRA. So they were down to five. Almost turned into four. May took a hit that should've been fatal."

He didn't ask the obvious question because he knew Maria would tell him once she figured out how to phrase whatever it was that had put that look of worry in her eyes.

"Loki was there. And it appears... that he saved Melinda's life by slowing down the bleeding long enough for her to get help. Which would be a big enough WTF for Coulson to figure out, but then I got this from the med team, and I think you can see why I insisted on meeting with you."

She handed him a tablet with an active screen up and Fury took it and scanned the data. He sighed heavily as he realized why Hill's worry was mixed with a clear upset at him.

"Do they know?"

"No," she answered. "I thought they deserved a whole story before this latest wrinkle hits them. Between HYDRA and T.A.H.I.T.I., they're at max capacity with secrets, Nick, and I can't say I blame them."

Fury nodded and handed back the tablet. The story about Loki had potentially solved a huge mystery for him, but it had opened up a chasm of danger around people he cared about, people he was depending on to help him set the world to right once again.

"Where are they?"

"Stark's underground research facility. He gave me carte blanche to help S.H.I.E.L.D. allies as needed, so he doesn't know Coulson's involved."

"You should tell him," Fury stated, a phrase met by Hill's raised eyebrow. "It's time. Does Cap still have a line on where the other Avengers are?"

Maria nodded.

"We need to get word to Thor. Last we knew, Loki was dead. If he's not..."

The reality of that hit Hill, and Fury saw the weight of it settle on her shoulders. "Then Odin may be in danger, or worse, which is incredibly bad."

"Let Stark's people know to expect me," he said, his hand already reaching for the bag he'd packed to move hiding places.

"And you're not going to tell me why it is we're so worried about this secret coming out? What's so big that you want me to blow the lid off Coulson being alive with the Avengers? Because you know once Stark knows, they all know."

"That's the idea," Fury replied. "There's a damn good chance we'll need their help. So when you're done with Stark, meet up with us. I'll stay with Coulson's people till you arrive. You need to know the whole story, too. But May deserves to hear it first."

"It's that bad?"

Nick turned back and sighed heavily as he nodded.

"Then you should know before you go in... May and Coulson, I don't know that they're giving it a label, but..."

Fury managed a small chuckle at that. "Well, that seems long overdue. Thanks for the intel."

Hill watched as her former boss walked out the door and then she pulled out her cell and hit the first speed dial.

"Pepper, I need to talk to Tony. Where can I meet you?"

* * *

For the first time in days, Phil Coulson could breathe. He was coming out of sleep... real sleep, it felt like, not some five-minute doze, and he breathed in deep, the air filling his lungs and pushing out the heavy, stale stuff at the bottom.

He could feel the weight of her hand against him, her fingers still now, but the skin warm and soft. Phil reached up and eased his own palm against hers as he sat up and felt another cord of tension release in his chest.

Melinda was out of danger. It was amazing, really, given how severe her injury had been, how much of her blood had spilled out on that floor. And even though thinking the four-letter name twisted his gut, the reality that Loki had played a part in saving her was something Phil knew he couldn't deny.

Hill was right, though. The "why" of it needed to be answered, and soon. Because there was a motive and that meant the Asgardian jackass thought he had something to gain. What that was didn't easily come to mind, but now that he'd slept, now that his mind felt a little clearer, Phil knew he should go out and get what was left of his team to work on finding the answer.

But that meant leaving her, and he just wasn't ready. And leaving when he wasn't ready? That was a mistake Phil was never going to repeat.

The memory of staring down at those papers, at signing his name on the line, was one of those awful things that snuck up on a person when they were too tired to defend themselves against it. Too much detail, too much inability to go back and fix it... the remembrance of how many times he'd set the pen down and stood to go tell her no only to pick the damn thing back up and start to scratch his name down in black ink.

He'd fought Melinda for years, moving out, taking foreign assignments, doing whatever it took to prove to her he was going on with his life while she healed from Bahrain. But the more Phil had tried to show her they'd be all right, the less herself she'd become. It was Fury who'd finally pulled him aside and told him he might have to let her go.

_"I swore to her I'd never leave her. If I go, that makes me a liar."_

_"She's lost, Phil, somewhere so dark that no light can get to her. She's not trying to block you out. She can't see you. The pressure of trying to get well for you is just making her sink further down."_

So Phil had asked her if she wanted him to file the papers, and Melinda had looked at him with such relief that, after a half-dozen failed attempts, he had finally put the tip of that pen against the page and signed off on the end of their marriage.

He knew it had helped her to no longer feel responsible for him, to invest all her fight in herself, and once she was working in Admin and they began to cross paths, a careful, tenuous friendship had reformed. But when she pushed him to see other women, to go back to Portland to visit Audrey, Phil had started to think that there was really no hope he'd ever get his wife back.

And then he'd died. Loki had ripped him nearly in half with that damn scepter and the last thing Phil remembered thinking as he heard Fury rushing to his aid was, "I hope she knows I never really wanted to leave."

It's only been in these last insane days when the world turned upside down that he's realized he never asked Melinda about any of it. Not how she found out he'd died, not how she handled it. He'd asked Hill to call his ex the second he was cleared for contact, so he'd always assumed that's how Melinda knew he was alive, but of course, now he knew different. And he can imagine it now that he's rational enough to think about the break in her voice... in Melinda May's voice... when she'd said she cared about him "a lot" while he roughly bandaged up her arm. He can envision the way she held herself together until she was alone and then shattered into rebroken pieces after finding out he was dead; he can see the way she willed herself back into work during the Battle of New York because she knew they needed her even though she was broken; and now Coulson can imagine the mixture of shock, relief, and fear that must have gripped her as Fury said those words that had changed everything.

_"Coulson is alive."_

Of course she kept the secret. This was the woman who had given him up to save him from her own darkness. A secret kept was a small price to pay to keep him alive.

She'd forgiven him his anger, of course, but Phil still hated himself a little for taking so long to understand what was now so painfully obvious. But in the wake of that upheaval, of their status quo fractured, Phil saw something he hadn't hoped to ever catch sight of again.

His wife.

Melinda was done healing from Bahrain. But she hadn't gone back and tried to be the person from before. She had moved forward, remade herself, one precious shard at a time, into this amazing woman who had held an army at bay to save their team.

_"That's what I do, Phil. I make sure we get out alive."_

Phil felt someone standing in the door and pulled his eyes up from the still form in the bed. Fury was dressed like he was playing a corner hustler for Halloween, his body leaning against the doorframe.

"Had a feeling I'd find you here."

Coulson stood and gently placed Melinda's hand back on the bed. She shifted, her fingers reaching out for him, and it prompted Phil to lean down and kiss her forehead.

"I'm okay, Mel. Just sleep."

She nodded without opening her eyes and then she was still again, and Coulson moved out of the doorway and into the hall, Fury on his heels.

"You and I are gonna have a damn serious conversation, Sir."

"Figured we would, but the one about you is gonna have to wait."

Coulson felt his brow raise as he followed the director's gaze back into the room where Melinda was sleeping.

"Hill told you about Loki?"

"She did," Fury answered. "And I'm afraid the worst-case scenario you've imagined isn't even gonna come close to the truth."

Coulson felt his body tighten, back stiff as the director turned to face him.

"So you know why he saved May."

"You and May were together a long time. She ever tell you about the accident she had before she started the S.H.I.E.L.D. academy?"

Coulson shrugged and nodded. "The drunk driver that hit her car? Yes."

Fury sighed and leaned in, lowering his voice.

"She tell you about all of her injuries in that accident?"

Phil stared at his boss wide-eyed a moment before he realized what Fury was really asking. Saddened at the memory of Melinda's voice that night and the way she'd told him the story curled against him in bed, Phil felt his throat tighten.

"The baby she lost, that's what you're asking me?"

Fury did nothing; he gave no reply or movement to confirm Coulson's theory, but they'd been around one another too long for the clarity of his non reply to be missed. Wheels spinning, Phil's reluctant brain did the math, and he took a step back as the implication cascaded over him.

"You're not saying it was him? The boy from Macau? No, she knows what Loki looks like, Sir. If she'd recognized him..."

"She couldn't recognize him."

And it all fell into place. Coulson knew what S.H.I.E.L.D. was willing to do to "protect" their best and brightest, and coming into the academy and for years since, there had been no one who fit that description better than Melinda May.

"You altered her memories. Why?"

A hiss of pain from Melinda's room drew both men back to the doorway, and Phil rushed to her side.

"You're not supposed to be moving."

She rolled her barely open eyes at him.

"Tell my nightmares that."

Phil waited as she settled down again, her good hand held in his. He'd almost forgotten Fury was there until Melinda noticed him.

"I knew you weren't dead."

Coulson chuckled when he saw aggravation pass over Fury's face.

"She's smart like that," he added, and Fury shook his head and came deeper into the room.

"You might wish I was when I'm done with this story."

It was a very non-Fury thing to say, and Phil remembered where they'd been in the conversation in the hall, his heart turning leaden at the idea of what else Fury knew and hadn't told him.

But he kept his fear at bay, tamped down tight, as Fury repeated what he'd already revealed for Melinda's sake, and he waited for her to do or say whatever came next.

"Why?" was her only question. "Why would you do that when you knew I was committed to S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

Fury took a deep breath. That more than anything made Phil tighten his grip on Melinda's hand.

"We noticed some unusual readings in your checkups. Unusual fetal readings. And we realized that your baby was an 0-8-4."

Phil's eyes shot to Melinda's face, but he couldn't read her. She was on overload, that he could tell, but she was also still weak and tired and in pain, and this suddenly felt like too much. It was unfair to drop this on her now just so Fury could unburden himself, and Coulson said as much before the director put up his hand to cut off the subtle rebuke.

"We didn't know who her father was then, May. But now I think we can all safely assume we do, because why the hell else does this psycho save your life when you're just one more obstacle between him and that damn scepter."

Melinda said nothing. She just kept her eyes fixed on Fury. But Phil felt her grip on his hand tighten now, too, in anticipation of the thing they both knew must be worse than all the rest because Fury still looked like he expected to be shot when he was finished.

"You were a promising agent, May. A young girl I hoped would become something special. But you weren't 'Melinda May' then; you weren't capable of protecting a child with unknown origins or powers, not if someone wanted to take her away from you."

"So you did it first."

Her voice was flat, the exhaustion and pain of injury erased as the realization of what Fury had done pushed it all away.

"Yeah," Fury said, copping to the crime immediately. "Yeah, I did. The thing is... you two found her."

They understood almost simultaneously, and Phil leaned down to still her, his hands on her shoulders, because he could sense Melinda's need to move, to do something, because it was all too much, too impossible and insane, and yet the pieces were there, too obvious to ignore.

"Skye. Skye's your daughter."

A handful of images raced through Phil's mind as he watched this woman he loved so much struggle with what was happening to her. Skye mocking Melinda's hated nickname only to come to some understanding of who Agent May really was; Skye's dying form hoisted into their arms in an attempt to save her life; Melinda's face when he'd stopped her from beating Quinn to death; and the utter and complete relief on Skye's face when May had strolled out to the motel pool and revealed her return to their team.

The wound of her lost child had run deep, so painful that they had only spoken about it that once, on the night Melinda had told him she couldn't have any other children and would understand if he wanted to move on and find someone else. But all he'd needed was Melinda. Then, now, forever.

And the girl she hadn't wanted on the plane, the one who had driven her insane and tried her patience only to become someone Melinda was willing to die for... that girl was the baby she had grieved and then learned to live without.

Phil didn't know what to say to help her process that, didn't know what to do to make it hurt any less. So he leaned even closer to her and pressed his cheek to hers.

"I'm going get her, Mel. I'm gonna go get your daughter."

He didn't need to tell Fury to stay put and make sure Melinda didn't hurt herself trying to get to Skye on her own. In fact, Phil said nothing as he rushed from the room. But his mind blazed with a flash red sign of a question that had suddenly become more important than anything.

Did Loki know?


	4. Chapter 4

Still not mine. Still just having fun.

* * *

There was something to having a purpose, a goal, that made it easier to move on when what you were trying to leave behind was too enormous, too big, to be settled in an easy round of "talking it out" and letting go. And the more Skye dove into the task Maria Hill had assigned her, the more her mind cleared.

Reconstructing the files of her teammates from the information she'd kept on the backup hard drive had been fairly easy; she'd been brutal but careful about her erasures. But deciphering and plugging in the information Stark had hacked from the S.H.I.E.L.D. mainframe before the Triskelion had fallen was a little tougher. More than half of it was coded and some was disjointed, a critical fragment torn away from a larger file that had been left behind.

In fact, now that they all had something to do besides worry, things almost felt normal. Fitz was busy setting up a cloaking system to allow their computer work to run without detection by anyone who might be looking, and Tripp was mining the contacts he knew were safe via his family connections for intel on Garret and Ward and their possible locations.

The hard part about her work was not letting the things she was finding show on her face. Because Fitz was still barely holding it together, and the last thing he needed was to notice her looks of concern or shock when she came across indications that Simmons had been working against them at least since London. Hidden duplicates of research and test files, purposeful misinformation planted in documents. She'd had to be careful. Coulson routinely had Skye check the system for potential mirror programs or back doors left open, but clearly someone - Ward most likely - had helped Jemma figure out ways to communicate with Garrett for months.

Not knowing the why of it still left a burning in Skye's gut, but she knew there was nothing for that but to get to the answer, and despite her natural instincts, Coulson and May's teachings had begun to firmly take root. One step at a time.

"Skye, I need a minute."

Fear shot through her instantly at the serious tone of Coulson's voice and Skye's eyes found him at the entryway to the dining area. She sat up, shutting her laptop and moved toward him.

"You said she was better."

"She is," he said, his hand dropping to her arm in a gesture that proved instantly comforting. "The physical damage is healing well, but because of whatever happened in there with... him, she's healing at a rate that's burning through her energy, so she's just mostly exhausted right now. And it hurts still. She won't let them drug her enough to block the pain."

"Why is she so stubborn?" Skye asked, half joking, her momentary flash of concern gone now that she knew May hadn't suffered a setback. But he still looked so serious, and even when he answered back that she was a fine one to call anyone stubborn, there was no real humor to it.

"A.C., what's going on?"

"There are a million details to the story I'm about to tell you, and most of them have to wait because I can't fill all that in for you. So I need you to know that May and I literally just found out this information; neither one of us kept it from you."

She felt herself start shaking, her nerves pulsing as adrenaline rushed through her body, and Skye reached for the nearby counter to steady herself.

"You found out something else about my parents?"

He nodded and her hand gripped the cool tile surface a little tighter.

"When you all donated blood to try to help earlier, the doctors found something. Now we don't know why it didn't come up before. Your medical records were in our system, it should've popped before now, but we'll figure that out later. It turns out that you are a DNA match to someone else they tested."

"Can you just pull off the band-aid already, and tell me?" She asked, her throat tight from the ache of fear and desire that was choking her.

"Your mom. She didn't know, Skye. She was told you were dead by people she trusted and she had no reason to think otherwise. I need you to understand that."

Skye let out an exasperated sigh and Coulson looked down, took a breath, and then looked back up at her.

"May is your mother."

Tears stung at her eyes as her brain whirled in circles. How was that possible? How in the world could that be the answer to the mystery she'd wanted solved her whole life?

"Melinda May... is my mother?"

"She is."

Coulson said it simply, clearly, as if that would somehow make the fantasy a reality in her mind. May was... she had a mother... a living, breathing mother that she actually knew, that was part of her life already?

Skye didn't even know she was moving until Coulson called out to her and she felt herself look back at him, her legs carrying her down the corridor toward the med bay. But she didn't stop, not for the mentor calling to her, not because of the shock that threatened to steal her breath.

She didn't stop until she was in the doorway of May's room, her eyes fixed to the form lying in the bed, barely registering the tall man with sunglasses who slipped past her.

And now that she was still, she was frozen, not sure what came next, what to say, how she was even feeling.

Then May opened her eyes and looked at her, and Skye saw her hand move on the bed, reaching toward her.

And then all Skye could do was cross the room as quickly as her feet would carry her.

* * *

Melinda didn't ask any more questions after Phil left the room, and she didn't waste energy trying to follow Fury with her eyes while he kept pacing and talking. Likely he had noticed her closed eyes and was unfazed. Fury knew her well enough to know she was gathering her reserves for what lay ahead.

"I made the decision it would be easier on you to take her before you went into labor. The complications from the cesarean were... unforeseen. We never intended for that to happen."

That the whole thing had been a lie, a construct, was almost a relief. It was the one thing in her life she'd never had a clear memory of... the car, the pain. She'd been at a doctor's appointment and then suddenly she was in a hospital being told her baby was dead and she'd survived a terrible accident.

Her grief had likely aided them tremendously; pushing away any desire to remember too clearly those last moments when the life inside of her was still there, waiting to be saved.

Melinda heard assurances her parents hadn't known the truth, that it was S.H.I.E.L.D. alone that had acted. Fury's voice had taken on that lower tone, deeper and a little rough, which it always did when he was trying to make it clear he did hard things, but he wasn't a bad man. She believed that to be true. She'd had to. Because Phil was one of those tough decisions, and despite the pain it had caused him, regardless of the rift it had temporarily torn open between them, Melinda had despaired in a world without Phil Coulson. She couldn't despise the man who had given him back to her.

But the desire to hate him... it burned bright in that part of her soul where Melinda fermented anger for a battle that needed its fuel.

Her memory was too full of details from the files she'd read. She knew Skye's childhood as well as anyone could from a written record. The endless parade of homes and the toll they'd taken were written in black and white as much as they were logged in the young woman's personality. And yes, Melinda knew Skye had found a way to spin all of that in a hopeful way when Phil had told her the truth about Linda Avery, but it didn't take away the ache that had formed at the thought of that little girl being the one Melinda had planned to give a home to, to love, to keep safe no matter what.

There was no way to know if Fury was right; there were only the facts as they laid out. There was undeniable evidence that someone was willing to commit murder to find her baby girl. The destroyed village in China, the dead agents... none of that could be ignored. Melinda knows her mother can be deadly when needed, and maybe that would've been enough to protect Skye from whoever had hunted her until, as Fury had put it, Melinda became "Melinda May." Or maybe they'd all be dead and Skye would've fallen into the hands of the murderers who'd been after her.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had taught her to assess the situation as it was, not as you thought it could have been or wished it to be. And with nothing but mysteries and what ifs to look toward, Melinda made a decision as she laid there, eyes closed, listening to Fury's explanations, to accept that it was all as it had to be. Whatever and whoever had made the decisions in the past, fate and Phil Coulson had brought her daughter home.

Every decision from now on would be hers and Skye's.

It took a moment for Melinda to realize Fury had stopped talking. Then she heard him step away from her bed and only then did she open her eyes. Skye was standing in the doorway, her face a palette of emotions too jumbled to read. Except for one. But Melinda knew where the fear came from, even if Phil had told the girl everything. Because even if she knew it had been to protect her, that little girl who'd felt unwanted and unloved was still a part of who Skye was.

So Melinda did the only thing that made sense. She reached out her hand to her daughter.

And her daughter came to her.

Skye's hands were shaking as they grasped hers, and tears were streaming down her face. Melinda pulled slightly, drawing the girl closer. She knew she was fading, that she'd need rest before she could do much more than this, but Melinda had stored every ounce of energy she had for this moment.

"You were always wanted. And I always loved you."

Her daughter melted then, tears and relief and every ounce of the overwhelming hell they'd been through lately crashing in on her. Skye slumped against the bed, her head on Melinda's shoulder, her hand still grasping her mother's as if letting go would make her disappear.

The fatigue pulling at Melinda was winning, but there was one more thing that needed saying now. Then she could rest. So she leaned her head to the side until her cheek rested against the top of Skye's head.

"I missed you every day."

* * *

Phil Coulson had always known Melinda May was the strongest human being he would ever know. Living in a world with gods and monsters hadn't changed that. But watching her fight to give some kind of peace to Skye as their already scrambled world got turned upside down once again proved even he had underestimated what she was capable of.

She was used to working her way through the impossible. She'd done it when she'd "lost" her baby; after dark, disturbing missions; and even though it had taken years, in the aftermath of Bahrain. But it took time for Melinda to process, to put it all in the right compartment and find a way to make sense of things so she could move forward. But this situation had taken her time away. Her daughter needed her now, and as she had a hundred times in combat, May met the challenge for the people or the person who was most vulnerable.

Someday soon he was going to ramble on like an addled sap telling this woman how amazing she was, how much he loved her in spite of their status as friends and the other people they'd tried to share their lives with. And Melinda would roll her eyes at him and tolerate his exuberance because that was what she did for him.

Someday soon. But right now they had to make the world stop shifting under their feet.

"You were married to Melinda May?"

The incredulous voice managed to make Phil huff out something close to a laugh despite the events of the past hour. Hell, of the past two years. When he turned to face the new arrival, Coulson couldn't deny how good it felt to see the face of someone he trusted.

"Nice to see you, too, Stark."

"I mean, yes, I get that the big-picture issue here is you were dead and now you're not, and while I'm thrilled about that, Phil... you were married to Melinda May? How did I not know this?"

"What, the dorky guy can't get the hot girl?"

"She's Melinda May, Phil. I swear, when I was reading the files I hacked on her, I thought Fury was writing S.H.I.E.L.D. fanfic with an original character."

Tony's eye caught the scene on the other side of the glass, and his voice faded as he watched Skye settle into the chair beside Melinda's bed, the older woman's hand still tightly clasped in her own.

"So that's her?"

"That's her," Phil answered. "Skye."

"Loki's daughter."

The words stung in way Coulson didn't expect; not out of jealousy but out of fear. He couldn't let Loki hurt them. He wouldn't. But when it came to adversaries, the Asgardian had more than proved himself dangerous and cunning.

"Thor's on his way. Pepper convinced me telling him his brother was alive was best done in person."

"Pepper is a smart lady."

Tony nodded his agreement.

"Phil, seriously... how the hell are you? Because that whole facing your death thing... I might not have taken mine quite as far, but it was... it wasn't easy."

Coulson sighed and leaned against the glass.

"I have alien DNA in my system and I might go crazy at some unknown future point, so... 'not easy' sums it up. But things like this happen..." Phil motioned toward the women in the other room. "And... I'm glad I'm still here."

"Some free advice? Focus on that. Second chances at life are not overrated."

Phil couldn't help but smile.

"Iron Man is a life coach. Who knew?"

"Yeah, well, apparently you don't need my services too badly. Melinda May? Seriously? Oh, I can't wait to see Barton's face when he finds out. He doesn't know, right? 'Cause Natasha told me he totally has a crush on May."

Stark goes on, predicting the reaction of the various Avengers to Coulson's heretofore unknown marriage, leaving Loki and Garrett and Hydra out of his ramblings like they were little more than bumps in the road.

And just like that, Coulson felt the world start to settle in place.

* * *

The barbs he'd thrown at Thor over his fascination with Jane had been designed to annoy and hurt his brother. But Loki was honest enough with himself to know they were also borne of jealousy.

As in all things, it seemed, Thor had the freedom to do what he wanted while Loki had done what was expected of him. He'd left behind the idea of possibility with the beautiful human who had captured his heart because Odin had wished it so.

He had never, in all the years since, tried to seek Melinda out, and had their paths not crossed on a HYDRA-drawn path, he likely never would have. But now that he'd seen her again, especially given how he'd left her, the urge to make certain she was okay pulled at him as surely as his need for food and water and air.

It was a mission made all the more complicated by his continued deception. Asgard saw him as Odin, not as Loki, and his people still believed him dead. He knew his elaborate play would end soon because he'd been seen by Coulson and eventually his brother would learn he'd survived their battle against Malekith. That would bring Thor home, and force Loki to make a decision about how to hold on to the power he had thus far successfully stolen.

But the opportunity to do as he pleased on this day was handed to him by Sif, who came to him alarmed by news she had garnered from Heimdall. It had given him every reason to approach the guardian as Odin.

"Sif tells me she's gravely concerned about the Son of Coul, that she wishes to return to Earth."

"For now, he appears safe, but there has been ferocious fighting on Earth. The forces known as HYDRA have taken a great toll on Thor's allies. Son of Coul has faced many dangers in this."

"It's likely Thor will be involved soon. Keep Sif apprised of where the humans are staging for battle. If it becomes necessary, I will send her."

Heimdall did as his king ordered, and it took little time for Loki to overhear Sif relay that information to Fandral. It was then nothing for him to slip off through one of the secret portals he used to travel between realms.

He chose a late hour hoping to find most of Melinda's cohorts asleep. Instead he found her bookended by Coulson and the dark-haired girl he'd seen helped out of the HYDRA compound. Melinda lay at rest in the bed between them, her face peaceful, the agony that had been etched on it days earlier gone.

That he had a part to play in saving her life sends a surge of pride through Loki as he settles into a hidden corner, magic aiding his concealment, to keep watch just a short while. He knows from brave warriors. Despite his disdain for Thor and his cohorts, he has seen them battle and knows they freely risk their lives for that which they believe in. Melinda could easily stand beside them from what he saw in that warehouse, a fact that still stuns him. He's not sure what honed the delicate, sensitive young woman he knew into this fierce creature, but he imagines her path has been filled with the kind of darkness that irrevocably changes the spirit.

The kind he's wrought... a truth Loki can own on most days.

"Can I ask you a question?"

The younger woman's voice is laced with exhaustion and something Loki can't quite read. A chuckle from Coulson is his first response.

"A question? Just the one?"

The younger woman laughs at that.

"Well, the first one... of about two million."

Coulson nods and waits.

"How long have you been in love with my mother? And seriously, we're both too tired for you to dodge that when it's super obvious, so just don't, okay?"

Loki watches Coulson's hand raise up and touch lightly against Melinda's shoulder. The rest of her arm disappears under the blankets of the bed, a lump of bandages protecting the newly repaired limb.

"First year at the academy, last week of classes. Everyone but me wanted someone... anyone... to beat her in a sparring match. And honestly, she was just that good. She didn't try to win, she just didn't know how to lose a fight. So the one guy who's gotten closest somehow ends up the last opponent of the day. And it was a battle. He gave it everything he had. Almost had her pinned. Then she does this move no one had ever seen. Jumped almost over the guy, spun around his neck and pulled him down into a back bend with her weight. She has him literally pinned to the floor by the throat with her knee."

The girl is rapt, and Loki is, too, honestly. So when she leans forward and asks what happened next, he's as eager for the rest of the story as she is.

"She stood up, stepped back, and said, 'It'll never matter that someone can beat me on a mat. It matters whether or not any of you can beat the man trying to kill you when your survival means life and death for others.' Then she reaches down and helps the guy up, tells him how good he is. Says she thinks he might take her in year two. And the rest of the class is pissy and annoyed because she was on to them, but the guy, he thanks her. Says he hopes if he's ever in a fight in a jungle that she's with him."

The younger woman smiled softly and looked down at where her hands were joined with Melinda's.

"She was everything I wanted S.H.I.E.L.D. to be," Coulson said. "She was trying to put the team first, teach them what mattered most, even when they'd all ganged up on her. I knew that I wanted her in my life forever."

The girl's eyes danced a little, probably imaging some scene from the past in her head. But Loki saw her face darken and her gaze drop away from Coulson's once again.

"Don't let it change anything. Please."

Coulson looked at her confused.

"I know what he did to you. I know you hate him. But you're... you're my family, A.C., not him."

Loki watched as Coulson pulled himself up from the chair and walked around the bed to the younger woman, kneeling beside her, his hand reaching out to cover hers and Melinda's both.

"Skye, that will never happen. I swear it. You're you. And whatever is special about you because of him... your mother and I will help you figure out what that means. All you need to know is that you are Melinda May's daughter. You're my friend. And you're a part of our family. Loki is... how I feel about you will never change because he's your father. I promise."

On the day Frigga died, Loki remembered feeling hollowed out, as if everything that had been decent inside of him had evaporated and left nothingness behind. He knew only avenging her would give him any sense of right in the world again.

As Coulson's words echoed in his mind, as he watched the man he'd once killed comfort the girl called Skye, something equally powerful turned inside of him. He had no words for it, no way to describe the sensation. But he knew that his life had again, in that moment, forever changed course.

He was someone's father.


	5. Chapter 5

Still don't own anything. If I did, clearly Loki would be showing up on AoS in season 2.

A/N - just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has reviewed or followed/favorited this fic. It's turned into a much more complicated beast than I intended and I will do my best to finish it out before life steals away my time to do so.

* * *

His first instinct is to destroy. Loki wants to run Coulson through... _again_, wants to find Nick Fury and tear his heart out, to crush Thor under the weight of his own hammer just because his brother is so often the target of his anger.

He is so tired of having his fate decided by others, be it out of love, manipulation, or fear, and in that first moment of awareness his lesser self wants nothing more than to make them all pay for keeping him from this young woman named Skye who's just been revealed as his own flesh and blood.

But something keeps him still. Perhaps it's the haunting lilt of his mother's voice where she still lives inside him, warning him that he is balanced upon a dangerous precipice; one side of the fall is certain to lead to his own ruin.

So Loki listens. He listens to Coulson recount what he can of the story to Skye... the heartbreak of young Melinda's loss, Fury's promise that he had no idea until now who Skye's father was.

It is perhaps the height of irony to Loki that his reputation for being a heartless murderer is what called such attention to his decision to save Melinda's life. His motives under scrutiny, they could find only one answer as to why he'd save a human when he'd deemed them insignificant. Loki was the boy from Macau, the long-unknown "alien" father of Melinda's child.

He wonders at the deep affection Skye already seems unable to hide as she looks back at her mother's sleeping form. Hours... she's only known for hours and yet she appears utterly devoted. But then, as if he's willed their inadvertent "fill in the blank" conversation, Skye chuckles and looks at Coulson and recounts a story about impersonating Melinda during an effort to save the other agent's life.

"You think that was nature or nurture?" she asks, smiling, and Loki sees the familiar spark of another young woman flash across her face.

"I think," Coulson replies, leaning down to place a kiss on the top of Skye's head, "that some part of you always knew you needed her. And now we know why."

Skye pleads her case to stay and keep watch even though the doctors have assured them Melinda is no longer in danger. Coulson seems unable to deny her and leaves with a promise to return in the morning so she can get some rest. Loki stays where he is, longing pulling from a notch deep in his heart, in that place where he used to feel tied to Odin and Frigga and Thor but that was torn asunder by the truth.

Yet thinking of those times, the times "before," makes him afraid to reveal himself. Because Loki is not who these people think him to be... not by birth. And he will already bear the burden of his rightly-gained reputation when it comes to his daughter.

Telling her he's a monster underneath the face he shows the world is something else entirely.

* * *

There were more visitors on their way to the compound and a ton of preparations to make in order to start the next steps in front of them. Coulson, though, just needed a minute, a beat of quiet to center himself and absorb all the new information that had become fact in his life over the past few days. So he left Fury and Hill to deal with the incoming Avengers, left Fitz and Tripp to entertain and assist Stark, and retreated to his office on the Bus to just... sit still.

The enormity of what had unfolded for Skye and May is too much to process and he knows that it changes everything about their lives and their team going forward. Skye is committed to the cause, to rebuilding S.H.I.E.L.D., but she's inexperienced and sometimes doesn't like to listen. That was hard enough to deal with when she was just the new girl they'd all come to care about. But she's Melinda's daughter; Melinda, who thinks of herself as the last line of defense for their team and for Coulson himself. Every moment that either of them is in harm's way from now on affects the other in a way that is solely about the new revelation that has rocked them to their core.

Then there are his feelings for both of them. And thinking as Phil and not as the leader of a team, Coulson knows that's going to be affected, too. Because he and Melinda are finding their way back home to one another, and he'll be damned if he lets that get derailed by the struggles ahead. It means retraining himself, returning to the days when he sent his wife into dangerous situations and trusted she would always return.

It means not thinking every mission will be Bahrain.

And Skye, who he already cares for so deeply is the child of the woman he loves. It changes things on such a basic, fundamental level, Phil's fairly certain he already views the world differently where the younger woman is concerned.

In an alternate universe, he'd have been her father. Stepfather, technically, but he'd have been there and he'd have done it willingly, happily, and lovingly because she was Melinda's little girl and nothing else would have mattered.

Nothing else matters still.

Loki is a problem for days and weeks and who knows how long to come. But Loki cannot change Coulson's responsibility to this family.

To his family.

On a larger front, the reports Tripp and Fitz were able to put together while he dealt with the personal situation that had crashed in on them has given them another family member to worry about.

It took Fitz a tremendous amount of work and a covert wiretap aided by Tripp to get what they needed, but in the end, what the they're left with is the possibility that one of their turncoat teammates was being coerced into their actions.

Fitz remembered the incident clearly, the phone calls from Jemma's parents that she kept ignoring and then her sudden decision after they'd wrapped up the berserker staff incident to accept a call.

Records show that the calls were made from the Simmons' phones, but that they weren't made from London as Jemma had stated. The day that their team had gotten orders to head for England was the last day anyone could remember seeing Jemma's parents at their home.

It's easy enough to figure out that at some point someone, whether it was Ward directly or some other plant working for Garrett, had gotten to Jemma and told her to take the next call, that her parents' lives depended on it. And so they were assuming that it was then Simmons had started working on the HYDRA team.

She was another victim of the incentives program. And if that was true, then part of their duty going forward was to find Simmons' parents, free them, and hopefully locate her and bring her home.

They'd worry about what came next then.

It also explained why they'd never gotten a DNA match hit on the computer system from any of Skye or Melinda's medical entries. Simmons had been responsible for all that input and it would have been easy enough for her to make sure their team was never alerted to the connection between mother and daughter.

What they don't know is whether or not Simmons has revealed that information to Ward or Garrett. Coulson's gut told him no. As an agent, it was the smart play... hold on to something big in case you need leverage later. But he suspected that had Simmons passed on that intel, everything that had happened in those final clashes would have gone down very differently, likely with Garrett's end goal being to take May and Skye as prisoners to exploit Skye's unusual family history.

Then there was HYDRA itself. The reality of how much alien tech had fallen into their hands was hard to swallow. But they would do it one damn piece at a time if need be. Too many people had suffered in the past to secure the world from those dangers. Someone had to be willing to do it again.

But underneath all the ideals that Coulson held dear, he couldn't deny that he just wanted to go back to that room and watch Melinda and Skye sleep and keep them safe.

He chuckled and leaned back in his chair as the thought left his head. If May could hear him right now, she'd kick his ass herself.

The only way to keep his family safe was to do what needed to be done. And so Phil sat a few more moments in the quiet room and then headed off the plane and back into Stark's compound.

He was met by the thunderous greeting of Thor, a bear hug he might not survive, and a comment from Natasha Romanoff that she was getting a little tired of people she cared about dying and coming back to life.

* * *

While his new home wasn't technically a cell, it was without question a prison. Odin had tried every conceivable route of escape he could imagine, but Loki's magic had so far befuddled him. When he'd been certain a sealed doorway was his possible way out, the door morphed into something else. Furniture that he'd broken to make tools for digging and breaking walls disappeared and then returned in a different shape. Odin wasn't sure what the cabin-like structure or its contents actually looked like because they changed so often and always felt as real and solid as the last incarnation.

What he did know was that for some reason he was still alive. Loki had secreted him away here somewhere between realms and was impersonating him on his throne, but Odin lived, and he had yet to determine why. Part of him, the bit he deemed foolish and prone to old-aged sentimentality, wanted to believe it was simply because some part of the boy he'd raised lived in the man who'd imprisoned him and still looked on Odin as a father. That was the hope Frigga would have wanted him to cling to despite all evidence to the contrary.

But it wasn't an explanation Odin could accept. The way Loki looked at him was often so filled with contempt and bitterness that it seemed impossible there had ever been love there in his eyes. And yet Odin remembered that love, knew the look and feel of it directed at him. It had not been a trick conjured to make the king open his heart to the adopted princeling. Where it gone to, evaporated by the truth of Loki's birth or metaphorically dug out of the trickster's heart, he didn't know. Odin only knew it appeared to be no more.

Still, if he didn't live due to a son's love or even a sense of familial obligation, what was the point to it? Were Thor to ever detect Loki's treachery, he would dismantle the nine realms in order to find Odin... of that the old man was certain. And for all the months that he'd been trapped here, Loki must have managed to successfully convince all his subjects he was the king. If Sif or Heimdall had even the slightest suspicion, they would have long since gone to bring Thor home, and he knew they lived and were well because to add insult to injury, Loki sometimes opened a viewing portal to Odin's home allowing him to see life continue in his faux presence as everyone who might have come to his rescue bought into Loki's lies.

Why harbor the danger then of keeping Odin alive?

"Tell me something."

Loki's voice ended Odin's internal questioning, and he turned to face the son he had claimed and given up where he stood on the opposite side of the room. It did not go unnoticed by the true king that his impersonator looked weary... wounded in some way, though he looked to be without physical injury.

"What will it be today, Loki Laufeyson? What secret of Asgard do you want unlocked to you now?"

It had become a game of sorts... Loki demanding answers to mysteries Odin would never solve. It was another mystifying element of this confinement.

"Asgard will have to wait for another time. I need to ask Thor's father a question."

That took Odin by surprise. He dropped the interior armor he used against Loki a notch, curious enough to engage him.

"And what is it that I can tell you that you do not know?"

Loki's eyes found his and Odin couldn't help but draw in a deep breath. Something had happened. It was beyond unclear what it might be, but there had been a door opened inside of the younger man's soul that Odin was certain he'd never been privy too before. He wondered for a moment at Frigga and how likely she'd have been to know this part of their son when it had always gone unnoticed by him, the father who was too busy raising kings.

"The first time you looked at him, what did you feel?"

"I do not wish to answer questions you ask only to make me inflict pain upon you."

His answer left confusion on Loki's knitted brow, and then a moment later, Odin watched as Loki huffed and shook his head.

"I don't ask by way of comparison to what went through your mind when you first saw me. I ask because it is something I need to know... and you are the only father I have to ask."

Odin couldn't help but be curious. Loki's moods now could switch in slivers of time so small as to not be measured... smug, tender, angry, depressed, triumphant, they could all fly past in moments that barely had time to live in certain conversations. But this... the best word for it was melancholy and it was oddly worrying. Odin felt a familiar pang of concern for his son-turned-captor.

"I thought... well, first I thought as a king, I suppose. I was proud that I had a son and heir to take stewardship of Asgard when I was gone."

The shadow that passed Loki's face at the mention of the throne was to be expected. It had never been Odin's intent to cause so much damage with the secret he'd kept, and while he knew Loki was a grown man who had to carry the weight of his own sins, Odin regretted often that he had not listened to Frigga when it might have made a difference to the path Loki would choose.

"After that," Odin continued, "I looked down at him and I felt... as if I'd just been handed the world, with all the responsibility and hope and fear that comes with such a gift."

Loki's eyes slipped shut as he took in Odin's words, and the rightful king of Asgard did something he hadn't done in longer than he could remember.

He took a step toward his son.

"You've learned something. A truth about yourself you didn't know before today. I imagine that's the only inspiration for such a question."

For a long beat there was nothing but silence, and then Loki turned to him and opened his eyes.

"I have a child. A daughter."

The news left Odin floored. He took a moment to let the words settle over him, into him, as he watched Loki still struggling to accept them as real himself.

"A child with whom?"

A small smile crossed Loki's still anxious face.

"The woman I left behind. The one from my brief escape to Earth."

It had been an act of defiance by a young man angry with his father. Later, Odin had learned it was Frigga who had gotten Heimdall to allow him passage on the Bifrost.

_"Sometimes a young man needs to leave home to find his way back. Give him some time."_

He'd been gone for months, Heimdall keeping a watchful eye on him from the heavens above. Loki had returned on his own, made up with his father, and only in later days when his spirit remained heavy had he finally confessed to the love affair with the dark-eyed human to Frigga.

She'd later told Odin about it, and about Loki's request that no one else know. Odin had agreed because his wife had assured him Loki held no illusions about his ability to share a future with the girl. He understood that Odin expected Loki to marry his equal, to provide Asgardian-born heirs for the throne. That was his duty as a prince.

So the incident had passed into history. But apparently not without record of its happening.

"Her name is Skye," Loki offered, "and she is... the most beautiful thing I've seen since the first moment I saw her mother."

"Does she know who she is?" Odin asked, not certain what it meant for the girl if she did.

"She knows I'm her father, though only recently. And she knows who I am... what I've done."

Odin waited, but no other words were offered. Despite that, Loki's face grew more tortured and by process of elimination, the older man realized what was causing the younger's misery.

"The truth of your birth. You don't know what it means for her."

And there it was. The questions, the fear, the anguish on Loki's face were the beginning of a story... one about a father worried at how his life and choices, his very nature, might affect his child. He was a man weighing the consequences of telling the truth... the whole truth... and wondering what the cost might be.

"Ah, Loki," Odin said, his body coming to rest in a chair an arm's length away from this man whom he still loved despite his best instincts. "Perhaps you and I have finally found some common ground."

* * *

The first thing Melinda May thought as she woke was that she couldn't believe how good she felt. Her body seemed almost normal, weaker than usual for certain, but healthy. And her arm...

She looked down at the limb and despite the bandages, she flexed her hand then pulled it into a tight fist. The pain that had resulted from the same actions the day before was gone.

Melinda sighed with relief and heard a soft mumble in response. She turned toward it to find Skye sprawled against the bed, her long hair fanning out over the sheets and blankets, twisted around her face from one too many movements in her sleep.

And the second thing she thought that day was... that's my daughter.

Her hand moved to the younger woman's hair and carefully began to ease the strands into something a little less chaotic. She had just cleared the most trapped tendrils when Skye startled awake.

It took the hacker a few moments to get her bearings, and then she looked at May and smiled perhaps the biggest, warmest smile Melinda had ever seen.

"You look so much better."

The enthusiasm in the words was matched by the spark in Skye's eyes, and she sat up straight, hands brushing through her messy hair to pull it off her face.

"I feel better, so that's good."

"Should I get someone or..."

Melinda shook her head and turned her hand up in offering on the bed. Skye reached out, a little hesitant and shy suddenly, but still she entwined their fingers and held tight.

"I'm fine. And Coulson will only be able to stay away for so long."

Skye chuckled at that.

"He's got his hands full, but yeah, he's been by a few times. Thor and Natasha Romanoff got here late last night, and Tony Stark is... he seems like a handful."

"He is, but don't believe it if Coulson grumbles too much. Stark brings out his inner bad boy, and he loves it."

Melinda watched as that made a funny image cross Skye's mind pulling a laugh out of the dark-haired girl.

No, woman. Her daughter was a grown woman, had lived a whole life without her. And the weight of that settled onto May's chest in a way it hadn't been able to when her body was plagued with pain and fighting to heal.

"Don't do that."

She looked up and met her daughter's serious eyes, Skye's grip a little firmer than it was a moment earlier.

"It wasn't your fault. What happened to us sucks... it's horrible and it sucks and I kind of want to punch Nick Fury in the face, but... it wasn't your fault and don't you dare do that yourself."

Melinda knew that as the facts laid out, Skye was correct... it wasn't her fault. But her baby girl had been safe inside her and then she was gone and it was entirely possible that had Melinda looked up from her pain and grief for a moment in those first few months, maybe she'd have realized something was off, that there were pieces to the puzzle that didn't fit.

"A.C. said last night that some part of me knew I needed you, even at the beginning when I thought you hated me." Skye leaned closer, her face open and bright, not a thing hidden. Melinda wondered if she'd still look like that if she had grown up with her, if Bahrain had still happened and she'd come home so broken to a daughter that wanted to know where her mother had gone.

"I think he was right," she continued. "But I think we both knew. It's why you didn't fight him even though you wanted me gone, and it's why I hated you for not liking me because I wanted you to so badly. And we fixed it. We're past that and we're better and we did that without feeling obligated to because we're related. So now... now look at where we get to start from with this whole mother/daughter badass combo thing."

It was one of the things Phil admired most about Skye... her ability to see the good in the worst possible situations. Melinda had wondered, back when they'd learned the truth about Skye's history, about her being an 0-8-4 and Linda Avery and the village filled with death, if that ability would diminish under the weight of the truth, but it had held.

She'd worried over it again as the hits to their world at S.H.I.E.L.D. kept coming until they were barely holding on, literally fighting for their lives against people they'd called friends a few days earlier.

But here she was, still holding on to the good in the face of a terrible reality. And Melinda made a decision to do the same, to take in her daughter's words and her spirit and focus on what lay ahead, not on what couldn't be changed. So she squeezed Skye's hand and mirrored her smile.

"You must have a million questions. Where do you want to start?"

Skye laughed then and shook her head.

"Um... okay, so I heard Coulson say your mom came and got you when you left Providence. Which, hi, you have a mom?"

"I do. She's... imposing but amazing. Retired but still formidable. And still annoyed that I joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and not the C.I.A."

"My grandma is a C.I.A. agent?"

Melinda nodded. "She was. Still is on occasion, though we both pretend I don't know that."

An unexpected wave of emotion passed over Melinda as she thought about her mother, about the way she'd taken the news when her teenage daughter had admitted she was pregnant. There had been anger and disappointment, but there had also been a strength, an unwavering determination that her daughter would still have the life she was meant to live even if it meant parenting a grandchild, at least temporarily.

"She'll be so happy to get to know you," Melinda said, throat tight and hurting as she pushed the words past. Skye's eyes dampened at the idea, at the possibility of having a grandmother. Then something else clouded her thoughts and made the tears spill over.

"Do you remember him?"

The "him" of Skye's question was clear even if she hadn't provided more information. Melinda thought for a few moments, her mind trying to push past the barriers and planted memories that had been put in place of reality.

"I remember that I felt safe with him. And that he was... wounded somewhere deep down. Hurting over something he never wanted to talk about. I know that seeing that in him broke my heart."

"He's done so many bad things," Skye said, her voice breaking. "I don't know how to feel about any of it. What he did to A.C., I mean... how am I supposed to be okay with that?"

"You don't have to be."

"But he's part of who I am."

It wasn't something Melinda could deny, but she also saw how badly Skye needed some kind of reassurance about herself. Already her mind was filled with images of a slaughtered village and dead S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and the idea that something about her was dangerous was one they couldn't disprove or ignore because they hadn't been sure what her origins were or what her potential powers might be until now.

She needed something. Her daughter needed to believe that she wasn't hiding evil inside of her that might erupt one day and hurt the people she loved most.

"From what I've read," Melinda began, "from what Phil's told me, Thor loves Loki. He knows what he's done, what he's capable of, but he remembers a different brother... one who was kind and decent and who loved his family. Even after New York, Thor couldn't give up on him because that goodness was real even though Loki chose to throw it away."

Melinda forced herself up into a seated position, her wounded arm sound enough to take her weight on it before she settled and then pulled Skye toward her. Her daughter came as she had the night before, and Melinda drew her up and into the bed, arms wrapping around this grown woman who still carried a wounded little girl inside of her.

"That's where you come from, Skye. That part of him made you. You are every good thing that the two of us had to give turned to a living, breathing person."

A shaky, sobbing breath accompanied a nod of Skye's head and Melinda took that as enough for now. There would be more discussions of Loki and what he was to them later, but she felt like she'd managed some small victory over her daughter's demons for the moment.

She glanced down, trying to catch a glimpse of Skye's face, and it was then that Melinda realized she was lying in a hospital bed holding her baby girl. It was a moment 25 years overdue and far different than the one she'd imagined, but it was real.

Skye's tears weren't the only ones falling when Phil Coulson finally made his way in to check on them that morning.


	6. Chapter 6

Still not mine; still just playing; still loving all things Marvel-verse.

* * *

Skye sighed as she dropped her blow dryer into its cradle and looked at her reflection in the mirror.

So many times in her life, she'd stared at that face and wondered who was looking back. Did she have her mother's eyes, her father's smile? Was any part of her a direct link to the people who had made her?

Now she had faces to analyze against her own, but she wasn't sure what her close inspection revealed. Maybe she had her mother's cheekbones, a similar shape to her chin, but nothing screamed, "Hey, Skye, Melinda May is your mom." And the photos she'd been able to pull up in their database of Loki weren't making any automatic connections for her either. He was likely responsible for the length in her bone structure that didn't resemble her mothers, maybe the shape of her eyes. Did anyone even know what his smile looked like? Given all the encounters SHIELD had had with Loki were wrapped in violence, she couldn't imagine Coulson or the Avengers had ever seen it.

Well... maybe one Avenger.

They weren't due to prep their mission to go after Simmons for another hour, and even though Skye was tempted to head back to the med bay, she resisted. They were doing a bunch of tests to evaluate how healed Melinda really was, mostly, Skye guessed, because her mother was less than pleased about the team leaving without her and she was desperately hoping someone would sign off on her going.

Skye knew that was next to impossible. Coulson still looked pale every time his eyes fell to where the staff had cut into May's arm. He wasn't about to risk her again so soon, not as their boss, and certainly not as the man who loved her.

Which was a whole other thing she and her mom had to talk about. But they'd have time for that later.

The mess was fully stocked thanks to Stark's minions, and Skye decided the best use of her time was grabbing some food. She was in the middle of making a masterful peanut butter and apple jelly sandwich on the whole grain bread Melinda... no, her mom... her mom had turned her on to when she heard a throat clear behind her.

She turned around and came face to face with a literal god, who also happened to be, apparently, her uncle.

"Hey, I was just... fueling up. May... my mom... she's always lecturing me about not going out on missions hungry. I have a bad habit of whining about snacks. You want one?"

Thor chuckled, nodded a yes, and leaned against the counter. Skye pulled out more bread and began a second masterpiece after passing the first one off to her guest.

"Your mother's a smart woman. Hunger's a distraction when you need to keep focus on your enemies."

"Lord, is there some kind of super warrior handbook you all learn that out of? You and my mom are gonna get along great."

"I've heard much about Melinda May from Sif. She was impressed, and that is not an easy task. And Romanoff and Stark have been telling me stories, though I must say, some of them seem to be a bit..."

"Made up? Yeah, I get how you'd think that. Trust me, though. Totally not made up. My mom is a first-class badass."

Thor smiled at her and she remembered that conversation back in London when she and Melinda had both commented on the Asgardian's "dreamy" nature. It was true; the adjective fit him to a tee. It was also slightly creepy now that she knew she was related to him.

"What about your family?" Skye asked after she finished off a bite of her sandwich. "How many of them are warrior types?"

"All of them. My father is the mightiest fighter I have ever seen. My mother was... she was as fierce as she was beautiful, but only when defending those she loved. And Loki..."

Skye swallowed the bite of food she'd been chewing and nervously followed it with a sip of milk. The name had been spoken now... her father's name... and the look of concern on Thor's face was hard to miss.

"Not big on using his powers for good, right?"

Thor looked up at her and Skye suddenly wished very much that her mom was here. How strange... she'd had a mother for days and already she felt that indescribable need for her presence in a potentially emotional situation. But the truth was, before that revelation had come to light, Skye would have wanted May there anyway if she was about to hear something hard about her parents or her past. Her strength was something Skye had begun to lean on and now she imagined that would only grow stronger.

"Loki is lost, Skye. Lost in a way I don't begin to understand. And as difficult as it is for me to make sense of the path he's chosen... to rationalize how he could let me believe him dead after the loss of our mother... he is not just a monster who unleashed his anger on your world. For most of my life, he was my beloved brother, and he fought at my side and protected me as surely as he's tried to destroy me in recent years."

"But that's what I don't get," Skye admitted. "You loved him. Your parents loved him, right? So what's his drama? How do you turn on a whole family that loves you?"

Even as she said the words, she thought of Grant Ward. She'd been attracted to him, had feelings for him, and it had seemed like he felt the same way. But he was also the man who had attacked Melinda with the intention of killing her. If Loki hadn't been there to intercede, the truth was, Skye might never have found out who she really was.

"Betrayal is a difficult thing to ever understand or to forgive."

Thor moved closer to her, his hand coming to rest gently against her shoulder.

"I don't truly know what my brother's motivations are. I don't know what hell he's planning now that he's had all this time to plot while the rest of us thought him dead. But I do know that he saved your mother's life. Something in him still has the ability to see the value in a single life. It gives me hope that the Loki I have always loved... the one my mother could not give up on... is still inside him."

Skye nodded, buoyed a little by the echo of her mother's words from this man who knew her father so well.

"What do you think he'll say about me... when he finds out?"

The serious look that had been on her uncle's face for most of their conversation vanished then, melting behind the warmth of another smile.

"I think he will be stunned he has any connection to such a beautiful, smart, and brave young woman."

And even though she still had no idea what to think about being the daughter of Loki... Skye couldn't help but return her uncle's smile.

* * *

"So... you have a kid."

Melinda was just buttoning up her shirt after a ridiculously long workup by Stark's med team when Natasha Romanoff's familiar voice caught her ear. She couldn't help but smile, grateful as ever that her old friend had come when she was needed.

"I do. Please don't corrupt her by telling her 'when May was my S.O. stories.' Some of those nights are not tales my child needs to hear."

Natasha laughed as Melinda turned to face her.

"Oh, but she definitely needs to hear the Bangkok story."

The Melinda May glare that took over her face had Natasha ready to giggle.

"Okay, okay. No Bangkok. But Sydney at least."

"Fine. Sydney you can share."

There weren't many people, even from those she'd known for years, who felt comfortable approaching Melinda and putting their hands on her. Phil, Fury maybe, and Barton when he was trying to cause trouble. But Natasha was one of those few, and she stepped in and took hold of May's injured arm, feeling for the solidity of the bones and muscles underneath her palms.

"How's it feel?"

"Pain's gone. Still some lingering weakness and some nerve tingles."

"But no permanent damage?"

Melinda shook her head.

"I'm still not ready to take a hit from you, but no, nothing permanent."

Natasha nodded and let her go, crossing her arms in front of herself.

"How much strength is it taking for you not to handcuff the kid to a pole so Coulson can't take her out on this mission?"

Melinda huffed and lifted her eyebrow as she took a seat on her bed.

"More than you can imagine. But I have to let her go. Skye needs this. She's just coming into her own. I can't get in the way."

"I'll be there. I'll be watching her back the whole time. Not like I don't still owe you one or two for saving Clint's ass in Dubai and Kiev."

That managed to bring a hint of a grin to Melinda's face. Dubai had been hairy and Natasha's call had almost come too late. Kiev... well, Barton had begged her not to tell anyone about Kiev in detail. He had royally screwed up and knew it. May had been in a similar position once herself, and had Peggy Carter not interceded, acted on a gut instinct, she'd have died in a capped well in Libya.

"Where's Clint nesting these days?"

Natasha sighed and sat down across from Melinda.

"He's still trying to prove himself. Nothing Fury said after New York seemed to get through. Since the Triskellion, he's been picking off HYDRA operatives trying to go underground. It's not like it isn't good work, I just wish he could let go of what happened."

"Having someone in your mind, manipulating you... I can't imagine. But Clint will find his way back."

The unspoken "if I can, anyone can" elicited a nod from Natasha. She remembered the days post Bahrain when Melinda had taken every mission on the books that called for a solo operative with no extraction plan. Finally Coulson, Clint, Fury, and Natasha had grabbed her and driven her out to her mother's house, knowing the elder May was perhaps the only person who could get through to her and make her start to deal with what had happened on that cursed welcome wagon outing.

None of them expected her to leave the field after, but at least she hadn't been trying to get herself killed. They missed her... their comrade in arms as much as the laughing, smiling Melinda who'd drunk Barton under more than one table. But at least she was alive.

And now, she seemed to finally be on the other side of it, at least much as she ever would be.

"I should go get ready for briefing," Natasha said, standing and checking her thigh holster out of habit. "I'll see you in there?"

Melinda nodded and stood herself. She needed a few minutes alone to get herself ready for all the tongue biting she was going to have to do. Every instinct in her was screaming to keep Skye close, but what she'd told Natasha was the truth. Holding her back now would damage her growth as an agent and as a person. Melinda had to do what was right, even if it was going to have her screaming inside.

Still, she reached out without thinking and grabbed hold of Natasha's arm just as the younger agent was about to exit.

"Nat..."

But she didn't need to say more. Natasha's hand covered hers in a gesture of friendship and comfort that went back years.

"Like she was my own, Melinda. Promise."

Melinda nodded and released her friend. It was time for her to find a quiet spot and meditate her way to some form of acceptance.

Her daughter was going in the field today without her. The idea of her team without her was frightening enough, and yes, it did help tremendously that Natasha and the others would be there, but still...

She'd just gotten her daughter back. She couldn't lose her again.

* * *

It was a good plan. Solid. Coulson knew it. He'd taken input from Tripp, Fitz - the only person who knew Jemma's family personally - Maria, Natasha, and even Stark. Thor hadn't felt the need to interject much, but he was mostly going on the mission to try to keep Iron Man out of trouble.

Hill was the dangle. HYDRA was falling apart and Garrett was on his own. They had good intelligence that he was hiding out in Turkey, and the Turkish government was more than happy to have someone else come in and clean up S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mess. Natasha had messages out for Barton in case he was nearby... with his steady tracking of HYDRA operatives, that was a possibility.

Logic told Coulson that Simmons' parents must be under Garrett's direct control. At this point, depending on his recruits to hold hostages with half the world's authorities on their asses was asking a lot. The wild card was Ward. They were still uncertain whether or not he'd survived Loki's vengeance back at the HYDRA compound. If he was alive, he could be the one controlling Simmons' family... and that could mean two zones they needed to attack.

But they wouldn't know until they were boots on the ground, and so Coulson pulled on a clean t-shirt and picked out a button down. A soft knock at his door interrupted his progress and drew him to the portal. The person on the other side brought a smile to his face that warmed his whole body inside out.

"Melinda."

She smiled and walked inside, closing the door behind her. Her right hand reached out and tugged at one of the unbuttoned sides of his shirt.

"Someday I'm going to get you to go on a raid in nothing but a t-shirt and a bulletproof vest."

"Only if you steal all my dress shirts."

She laughed, and it made him happy he could do that... make her laugh... with all the worry he knew she must be wrestling with. When she moved to couch to sit down, he followed, a little concerned when he saw her sway as she took the last few steps. They sat facing each other, one leg bent up along the cushions while the other touched down on the floor.

"You've been out of bed all day."

"And I'll be out of bed a little longer," she said, the look she threw him leaving little room for argument. "I promised the doctors they could monitor me while I slept, and I will let them. But I'm done with invalid duty."

Stubborn as ever, but Phil wouldn't have it any other way.

"It's a solid plan. Just keep your guard up with Simmons. We all want to believe the best, Phil, but..."

"I know. We've been caught wanting to believe and paid the price. It won't happen again. You've got my word on that."

Melinda nodded and exhaled, letting the matter go. It felt like they'd barely had a moment alone since she woke up and she didn't want this to be about the mission. She reached out and took his hand, surprising him a moment, but then his lips turned up and he leaned his shoulder into the couch, settling in.

"So..." he paused, maybe second-guessing his thoughts, but then he looked down at their hands and when his eyes came back to hers, she saw him relax.

"What's it like... having your daughter back?"

"I'm not sure I know the answer to that yet. I'm grateful, happy. But there's so much we don't know."

Phil squeezed her hand.

"We'll figure it all out."

She rested her head against the couch, her eyes never leaving his.

"It's hard not to think about all the time she was alone. I know Fury thought he was doing what was right, but... what if there were no blood tests? Was he really going to let me live my whole life without..."

The words were pulling her to a place she didn't want to go, so Melinda stopped and shook her head.

"I'm just glad those Phil Coulson instincts told you she belonged with us."

He smiled at her for that, then his face grew serious and he squeezed her hand.

"I'll order her to stay if you want me to."

And he would. In the space of a few days, Melinda had nearly died helping to rescue Skye only to find out the young woman was her supposedly-dead daughter. Any man who couldn't look at that just on surface and understand why he was an ass for wanting to drag said daughter into a dangerous mission was insane. But Skye hadn't even waited for Phil to bring it up. That morning when he'd gone by to visit and found May trying to hide tears from Skye while they held each other, he'd distracted them both from the emotional conversation they'd clearly had by updating them on the Simmons situation. Skye had made it clear she was going. She would know if Jemma was lying to them or not... and if she was, Skye had a score to settle, and no one was keeping her from being there. When Melinda hadn't argued, Coulson had taken that as a sign. But still...

"She needs this," Melinda said finally, though she was obviously wishing the opposite was true. "Natasha is there, and I doubt very much Thor is going to let his newly found niece get into too much trouble."

Coulson nodded. If she was willing to accept it, he wouldn't stand in the way, but his own worry over Skye was going to be hard to hide.

"Well, Maria's already informed me she's taken on the responsibility of me," Phil offered, trying to distract them both from what lay ahead. "She told me she has no intention of facing you fully healed in a fight, so I better not do anything stupid."

"My mother has always liked Maria... with good reason."

She was teasing, but the soft look in her eyes told Phil that she was planning to thank Maria for taking on a role she herself had intended to ask their former commander to fulfill. His fingers played over the skin on her hand, and the movement was almost hypnotic, and most assuredly comforting.

"I've gotten used to it again so quickly... always having you beside me in the field. It'll feel strange."

Melinda nodded, understanding completely. But even that small allusion to their past had her moving closer to him, her other hand coming to rest on top of their already entwined fingers.

"I was waiting for the right time..."

"Melinda, you don't..."

"I do," she insisted, her hand squeezing his. "Letting you go was the hardest thing I've ever done, Phil. But I had to do it."

"I know," he said, leaning closer, his other hand reaching up to brush the hair away from her face.

"But you were always the goal. Getting back to you... even if we couldn't be what we were again... every day was me fighting to get back to you."

He leaned in then, brushing his lips over hers, and the arm that she'd nearly lost moved around his neck and pulled him closer. The movement sparked Phil to deepen the kiss, the years of missing her rushing up out of the box in his heart where he'd forced himself to store the memories of his wife in the hopes of keeping hold of his friend.

When they broke apart, she leaned into him more, her head resting on his chest, hand moving to cover the rough scars that lay there.

"Don't die again," she whispered, and he brought his hand up to cover hers, pressing it tight against him so she could feel what she'd done to his heartbeat.

"My wife's gonna be waiting for me. Nothing could keep me from coming back here."

She turned her face up to him and the spark in her eyes, the warmth in her expression took Phil back a decade to a moment that had changed his life forever, divorce or no divorce. It had been such an ordinary day. A Sunday at home, football on the television, the remnants of brunch spread over the coffee table. Melinda had teased him about not being able to explain the difference between a safety and a cornerback, and he'd looked down at her and she'd been looking up at him, and all he could think was... I need to marry her. So he'd asked, and she'd accepted.

Whether she was reliving that moment, too, or just living in this one now, Melinda reached up and pulled him down to her so they could seal his promise with a kiss.

* * *

The Bus was fueled and ready to go, Tripp and Maria already in the cockpit, the rest of the team onboard, giving a moment of privacy to the tiny newly formed family unit that was dealing with more than seemed fair these days.

Melinda saw Coulson waiting off to the side a bit as Skye walked up to May. She reached into her gear bag and pulled out the gun Tripp had given her earlier and held it up.

"Would you? Just... for tradition. You're always the last one to check."

Moving carefully, Melinda took the gun from Skye and checked that it was properly loaded and secured.

"You're all set."

Skye took the gun back, returning it to her bag, then she looked back at her mother with a confidence that was obviously taking a ton of effort to maintain.

"So really, I'm the one who should be worried," Skye began. "I've got half the Avengers with me, and you've got, like, Stark security guys. I mean, you're you, so... that's probably more than you need, but you did nearly die the other day, so..."

Melinda's gaze floated toward Coulson, who was trying not to laugh at her daughter's nervous ramble. Stepping into Skye, she wrapped her arms around the younger woman and pulled her into a tight embrace to end her misery.

"I'll be here when you get back. If you need anything, just think of Natasha as me until you come home."

Skye squeezed her mother tighter as a chuckle rippled out of her throat.

"Does she have the same reaction to being called Black Widow that you have to... that name? I think it'd be mean to not warn me."

Melinda stepped back and flipped Skye's hair over her shoulder.

"I'd stick with Natasha."

Skye smiled and nodded.

"Got it."

Coulson stepped forward and touched Skye on the arm, and she turned and gave him a grin, too, and then headed for the Bus with one last shout over her shoulder.

"See you soon, Mom!"

The joy that rolled through her at that simple phrase was almost overwhelming. Melinda remembered her mother talking about the intensity of parental love, how it wasn't something you could fight... it just was. She'd never understood that until now, because what she'd felt for Skye before... affection, concern, friendship... it paled when held up to the force of what her heart could barely contain now.

"Get some rest while we're gone."

She nodded at Phil's instruction and stepped into him. She reached for his hand, squeezing it.

"If Ward is still alive, she needs you to set the tone, Phil."

Of everything the team was about to face, there was no doubt that confronting Ward would be the hardest. Garrett's betrayal was personal to Phil and Tripp, but the emotional wreckage their former specialist had left in his wake had cut them all to their core. Their last confrontation... the impact of that on Skye and Phil in particular was too great to ignore.

"I can't let him hurt anyone else."

She moved closer, her body pressing against his, hands moving to his cheeks so she could force him to look at her.

"And if he forces your hand, you'll do what needs to be done. But it'll be the right way. Our way. Not theirs."

Phil nodded and leaned against her, his forehead touching hers.

"Our way."

Satisfied, she stepped back and let him go.

"Fury's lurking someplace." Phil lowered his voice, though most everyone was too far away to hear them. "Try not to punch him too hard if he tries to talk to you."

Melinda rolled her eyes and gave his hand a final squeeze, then she stood watch until Phil was on the plane and the Bus was safely off the ground and on its way.

The doctors were waiting for her back in the med bay, anxious to get a new set of readings, but Melinda knew she was too restless to sit still. Her energy level was likely to wane soon... she was still nowhere near her usual level of stamina, but until then, she decided to wander the facility and work off her nerves.

She'd been wandering for more than twenty minutes when she felt it. Stopping in place, Melinda tuned herself into her surroundings completely, trying to figure out who or what was near her.

"Show yourself."

Eyes scanning, May searched. Something was here, but she couldn't get a read on what or where.

"Show yourself now."

The wall to her left had an ornate metal carving depicting some sort of scientific symbols. At her last command, the carving shifted and a figure stepped forth, the metal shape slowly morphing until the man behind it was revealed.

"I'm not here to hurt you. I swear it."

Melinda took a step back, but nodded at Loki, taking him at his word. Had he wanted to harm her, she'd been fully vulnerable and he'd had ample chance to attack.

"How long have you been watching us?"

He looked down at the floor a moment before meeting her gaze.

"Not for years and years, Melinda. I couldn't allow myself. And then there you were in that warehouse and I thought I had gone mad at first. How was it possible that the warrior in front of me was you?"

"A lot has changed since Macau."

Loki chuckled.

"Indeed. For us both. You've become a heroine. And I've become a villain."

She ignored his mention of their histories and stood up straighter, shoulders squared and gaze hard.

"You've been watching us since the warehouse then."

He paused a beat, and she knew he was considering a lie.

"Since then, yes."

"So you know."

A smile pulled at the corners of Loki's mouth and he nodded.

"She is... exquisite. Everything I'd imagine a child of yours to be."

Fear washed through Melinda, wrapping itself around her heart in a way she had only ever felt in those moments when she thought maybe, just maybe, she had been a second too late to save Phil.

"If you do anything to hurt her..."

A flash of anger shot through the Asgardian's eyes at her words and Melinda stopped, not out of fear but rather recognition that she had genuinely hurt him.

"She's my daughter. I am capable of monstrous things, Melinda, I don't deny that, but I would never hurt my own child."

"Then what do you want here? Why wait until everyone else is gone to reveal yourself?"

He huffed and paced the floor across from her.

"As if I'd show myself while my oaf of a brother was plodding along the hallways? The last thing I need is him trying to dictate to me how to handle my own child."

His ire flared at her like an alarm, and Melinda transformed fully into Agent May in a heartbeat, her emotions held tightly in check as she sought an advantage against an opponent. And yet the roller coaster of emotions going on, his real emotions versus his anger, were making him difficult to read.

"You aren't in a position to handle anything with regard to Skye."

Loki seemed to register that he'd said something she'd taken as a threat and he exhaled deeply and put up his hand.

"I meant only that you and I need to speak about our daughter, Melinda, without interference. There are things I need to know... and that I need to share... that will affect her future."

"What you need to know," she said, advancing toward him, "is that until Skye is ready to talk to you, you will keep your distance."

"I've no intention of approaching her."

And it was the way he said the words, the droop in his whole being as he spoke them that made her see he meant it. So Melinda eased her stance and stepped closer.

"When she was a baby, someone or something murdered an entire village and a S.H.I.E.L.D. team trying to find her. S.H.I.E.L.D. was able to hide her again and keep her safe all these years. Do you have any idea why someone was after her? Do you know what's special enough about our daughter to be worth that many lives?"

His eyes found hers again, and what she saw in them made those tendrils of fear around her heart tighten.

"There's something I need to show you," he said, his voice soft and hesitant. "I don't want to frighten you, but... you need to understand who I really am. For her sake."

The heartache that was laced through his words pulled at Melinda, dislodging memories of a long ago night when she had held this man in her arms while he told her of the ache inside of him, of how he was loved by and yet felt alien to the world in which he lived.

"Show me."

Loki straightened up and turned to face her fully, arms at his sides.

"I wasn't born to Odin and Frigga. Odin... found me and claimed me as his son, but my real father..."

Melinda was dumbfounded. Not the son of Odin? But before she could ask, Loki's appearance began to change. His pristine skin darkened and colored, turning a shade of blue more vibrant than his eyes. And then he placed his hand against the wall and in an instant, it began to freeze, ice racing across its face.

"My real father was a monster," he said, defeat in his voice, his head hung so that he did not have to see her reaction to his true appearance.

"This... thing... this is Skye's father."

She had no idea what to say or how to react. Obviously she'd known that Skye was not entirely human given what they thought they knew about Loki's origins, but now... she needed more information, more to help her understand. Their daughter's life might depend on it.

But her answers were waylaid by the near silent approach of the man who'd taught her how to sneak around a corner, and both Melinda and Loki looked up stunned to see Nick Fury, armed, furious, and out for blood as he stared over the barrel of his gun.


End file.
